Dear Paul Hartal,
Thanks for sharing your poem with us. Your exquisite writing has conveyed the pain and terror of the massacre in Nanjing very vividly. It was very much admired here at our office. Would it be okay for us to post your poem on our Facebook page or Twitter, attributing and linking it to you?
We look forward to your reply.
Best wishes,
Jenny from womenofchina.cn

In the NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW (16/10/2006) , John Cartmel-Crossley, Fellow of the British Royal Society of Arts, writes:

“For Paul Hartal the heart of poetry is the poetry of the heart, ” yet his oeuvre “transcends the realm of love and passion. His poetic sensibility balances dreamy emotion and discerning intellect, creative vision and insightful thought. His work is both serious and humorous, philosophical and surreal, formal and experimental.”

“A very powerful poet, Paul Hartal inspires poets worldwide”, observes Tracy Repchuk, President of the Federation of Canadian Poets.

On POSTMODERN LIGHT: “Renowned artist, poet and philosopher Paul Hartal consistently seeks the emotional core of the reader in his poetry”, writes Daniel Goldberg. However, in Postmodern Light: A Collection of Poetry, “his goal is transcendence — leaving behind the realms of love and passion for a whimsical and, at times, deadly serious journey through the realm of dreams and the intellect, through the spirit of creative vision and the potential for personal enlightenment” (Concordia University Magazine, Fall 2006) .

Also an award-winning artist, the recipient of the Prix de Paris, in 1975 Paul Hartal published A MANIFESTO ON LYRICAL CONCEPTUALISM, a new element on the periodic table of art. “Lyco Art emphasizes the creative process as an interaction of emotion and intellect, where the passion of logic and the logic of passion are inexorably interwoven through the voyage of consciousness”.

“This Canadian artist has ushered in a philosophy that proceeds with many layered viewpoints, an elaborate dialogue between paint and concept”, points out Elizabeth Exler in MANHATTAN ARTS (November-December 1992) .

In Hartal’s vision poetry and painting originate from the same primeval fountainhead of creativity. Forms are wordless verses and colors are sleeping poems on the artist’s palette, he says. The muses inspire and elevate by the same themes. The moon and the stars, for example, continue to enchant poets and artists alike. The cosmos fascinates him. For centuries, poets and artists portrayed the glories of the universe, depicted the wonders of distant travels. As a visionary artist of space exploration Space Week in 1994 invited Paul Hartal to exhibit his work at the Space Center in Houston.